Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Fantastic Four #8

I've been enjoying Matt Fraction's run on the Fantastic Four, which has taken some odd turns.

The initial premise was that the team was going on a year-long exploration of... well, whatever they felt like exploring: the universe, alternate dimensions, all of space and time (surprisingly, they're not traveling in a Tardis).

But the story hasn't exactly followed that initial plan. Part of that is because of the Age of Ultron tie-in (which only gets the briefest of mentions here), and this issue throws another curve.

Here we jump away from the cosmic exploration and instead take a personal journey with a temporarily de-Thinged (un-Thinged? non-Thinged?) Ben Grimm as he takes a side-trip to his home town.

It's an emotional story that stretches credibility a bit, but has a heart-warming message.

As always, I love the artwork by Mark Bagley, who is equally at home with real-world settings as he is with the cosmic hoo-hah stuff.

The story also sets up a possible tweak of a pivotal moment in the team's history - we'll see how that plays out - but so far, this has been a strong series.

Fraction had a lot to live up to, following Jonathan Hickman on this series - and so far, he's holding his own.

Grade: A-

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